Re: Default PATH setting - reduce to something more sensible?

Kaz Kylheku wrote:

On 2025-01-22, Geoff Clare <geoff@clare.See-My-Signature.invalid> wrote:

Axel Reichert wrote:
>

tilde expansion is not, AFAIK, included in POSIX

>
Incorrect.  See XCU 2.6.1 Tilde Expansion, which includes the following:
>
    In an assignment (see XBD Section 4.26), multiple tilde-prefixes
    can be used: one at the beginning of the word (that is, following
    the <equals-sign> of the assignment), or one following any unquoted
    <colon>, or both.
>
The reason this is there is for things like PATH=~/bin:~/sbin:/bin:...

 
But surely that must be expanded before PATH is assigned.

Yes, of course.

PATH is processed by the "p" exec functions like execlp. I don't
think these perform tilde expansion!

Correct.

So the reason for using tilde in PATH assignments is the same reason
as using them in any other shell programming situation; to save
keystrokes over typing $HOME.

Yes.  Perhaps I trimmed too much.  The post I was replying to said
"$HOME/bin [..] is better than ~/bin, because tilde expansion is not,
AFAIK, included in POSIX" and $HOME is also, of course, expanded before
PATH is assigned.  So there is no reason to prefer $HOME/bin over ~/bin
since (when used in an assignment) they are equivalent in POSIX.

--
Geoff Clare <netnews@gclare.org.uk>